Burned
by embyr-75
Summary: He slept sitting upright against the trunk of a narrow tree with barely enough cover to shield him against the rain. She frowned; the Hero of Time deserved better than to spend his nights in the open air of Hyrule Field.


_A/N: A little one shot, since I was in the mood and for no other reason. A selfish indulgence._

Burned

His hands were burned from wielding the legendary hammer, which, blow by heavy blow, had brought the dragon to ashes in glorious victory. His fingers curled slightly over his palms, stiff, as if he were holding something fragile. They were red and slightly swollen, the dirty, narrow crevasses of them covered in calluses. His battle-worn gauntlets were discarded nearby. The leather must have hurt.

She felt something jump in her throat as she inspected his injuries. Where else was he bruised and aching that she could not see? How many times had the fires of the mountain grazed his flesh, leaving a trail of raw, useless skin? She spied the dried blood on his shoulder where the dragon's claws had slashed through his tunic. The red threads of it glowed in the light of his dying fire.

He slept sitting upright against the trunk of a narrow tree with barely enough cover to shield him against the rain. She frowned; the Hero of Time deserved better than to spend his nights in the open air of Hyrule Field. His sore hands drew her gaze again, motionless and unprotected.

Just one more time… surely one last time wouldn't…

She chewed her lip gently, watching his face for any sign he might stir. He was perfectly still, his spine braced against the skinny tree. His face was burned, too, the skin of it various shades of pink. But his expression was unchanged; even when he slept it was the stoic, determined warrior whose face he wore, his brow slightly creased as though he were disturbed. She peered softly into his dreams, berating herself as she went. It was none of her business what he saw in his dreams; but curiosity won out and she pressed into his slumber uninvited. She saw the night-visions dancing behind his eyelids: forests, dark forests; endless, thick-boughed trees, knitted into a denseness she had never known. The forest was not peaceful; he was shivering in the cold of his dreams. But he did not move, did not try to venture out of them. Slowly she realized the manifestation of himself was a child, a cold, helpless child, the part of him that had not grown. She felt regret, not of her trespassing, and pulled away, and there was the Hero sleeping against the tree again.

He looked like a man and spoke like a man, and in a great many ways he was one. But there would always be a part of him, no matter how small, that wouldn't understand what the rest of him was doing, and she feared the kind of life he could live in that condition. It was her fault. That was why it hurt so badly. No, the reason it hurt so badly was that she didn't want to fix it. It hurt because she felt guilty, and it hurt because she knew what had to be done. Her hand moved unbidden towards his illumined cheek and stopped a hair's breadth above it. Never to see his face again, never to touch it; never to breathe on it, and feel his breath on hers; not even once, because if she did, she would never be able to send him back. She would love him, and she believed he could love her; but what kind of love could she offer him if she had the only thing he really wanted and refused to give it to him? He would smile when he held her and close his eyes when she kissed him, but how could he ever forgive her for withholding the key to his completeness? And if she didn't tell him that she did, if she kept from him the truth that she could have sent him back, would he see the lies in her eyes? Would he feel her shiver when his bare skin touched hers, not because it pleased her, but because she knew she had gotten him unjustly? She might be able to live with the monster that would make her, but surely he wouldn't.

His burned, curled hands drew her attention again. One more time, she could allow herself that much. He deserved it. She didn't deserve to give it to him, but he deserved to receive it. Tentatively, she let her fingertips slip into the curve between his thumbs and his forefingers so that the rigid frame of his hands held hers. The healing magic dripped out of fingers, a cascade of raindrops that reinvigorated his flesh where it landed and spread. The raw, blistered skin turned coppery and filled out. The edge of his fingers relaxed as his flesh softened. The calluses would have to stay; callused hands could handle a sword better than unworn ones could. She watched the burns give way to his capable, Hero's hands. He'd slain with them, weaved the delicate threads of music with them, held back his own surging wounds with them, saved the world with them. She folded her hands into her lap when she was done. What little things she had done with hers compared to what he had.

She stared numbly at his hands when they loosed from their tense pose and made two gentle fists, and then evenly stretched. She bit back the urge to gasp and only inhaled deeply as her eyes went up to meet his. She knew whose eyes he saw: the scarlet circles of the Sheikah she pretended to be. Just once she like him to be able to see hers, to see what expression his eyes held when he was looking at Zelda's, and not at Sheik's.

She stood quickly and he didn't follow her. His eyes bore deep into her, and the hole they left ached. The moment passing between them was tense, he sitting in the dim light of his fire's embers and she standing, caught, in her impassive Sheikah disguise. When had he woken? He seemed to understand that he shouldn't question her, even though he had tried to before. How it pained her to walk away from him time and again. She still heard his voice, firm and yet begging, the last time they'd met.

_This song is dedicated to the power of the heart..._

Their music had reverberated ethereally in the shuddering air of the crater, a strand of notes that he echoed flawlessly when she plucked her harp. Had he seen her hand shaking as she tugged at the strings?

_Link... See you again..._

"_Wait, wait!"_

A wall of fire rose between them and she blinked at the memory of it. Link's eyes were still fixed absolutely on hers. Her heart hammered inconsolably.

He said quietly, in his deep, worn voice, "Thank you."

She could not nod, she could not smile. She could give him no acknowledgement. Even though he was friendless, even though he was weary and weighed down with his burden, she could give him nothing else. It would be too dangerous. His tiny fairy stirred in his pocket and peeked out of it, but said nothing. She seemed to know, too. How she wanted to stay in the smoldering ring of his fire. But it couldn't be helped. Not yet.

She turned without and word and took off running into the night, as quickly and silently as a Sheikah should, and without looking back. It wasn't until she was deep into the darkness that the tension in her chest eased and she cried, but she kept running. She could put no reason to her tears, yet they felt so necessary. She thought of him sitting solitary with his fairy, propped against the inflexible trunk of the narrow tree, watching her figure melt into the shadows, having to prepare to face the night alone again.

At least his hands were healed. She knew it hurt him when they were burned.


End file.
